Ableton announces Live 11 Version with new Recording, Performance and Production updates

Ableton is one of the most widely popular DAWs among musicians all across the globe. Known for the ease of use and speedy workflow, Ableton Live 10 was one of the most successful audio workstations ever released. Building on the same ideology, Ableton has just announced the Live 11 Version with massive updates on Recording, Performance, and Production helping musicians to optimize their workflow and get even more creative within the DAW. A total of 6 updates have been announced the details of which are mentioned below.

1. Comping

Comping is aimed to help you incorporate the best portions of individual takes into one single consolidated track. This feature is quite useful if you are recording vocals or live instruments. Not only it is useful for addressing minor mistakes in different takes, but also is quite helpful for creating counter-melodies & unique drum loops. Watch the feature in action down below.

2. Add more feeling to your music

This update includes improvements on the MIDI channels. You will now be able to edit the pitch, slide, and pressure envelopes of each note to refine the expression of your takes and also provide the option to sequence polyphonic sound variations.

On the other hand, Ableton native plugins Wavetable, Sampler and Arpeggiator are all updated to support MPE(MIDI Polyphonic Expression) to help you modify the expression parameters through your MIDI devices in real-time.

3. New Plugins

Ableton Live 11 comes in with 5 new plugins which include Hybrid Reverb, Spectral Resonator, Spectral Time, Pitch Loop & Inspired by Nature.

Hybrid Reverb is a combination of convolution and algorithmic reverbs and offers to option to place sounds in various different environments. The modes on the reverb are Large Hall, Shimmer, Reflections & Lo-fi.

The Spectral Resonator breaks the spectrum of an incoming audio signal into partials, then stretches, shifts, and blurs the result by a frequency or a note in subtle or radical ways. Spectral Resonator comes in with 4 modes: Shift, Granular, Poly & Stretch. This plugin is a great tool if you are looking for granular synthesis plugins.

Spectral Time processes your audio through a frequency-based delay which results in metallic echoes, frequency-shifted and reverb-like effects. Probably designed to make unique textures and FX sounds.

Pitch Loop 89 creates jittery glitch effects, delayed digital shimmers, and outlandish vibrato with this Max for Live pitch-shifting device.

Inspired by Nature is a combination of six playful instruments and effects created in collaboration with Dillon Bastan. All 6 instruments take inspiration from natural ailments and have the potential to create some unique and warm sounds. The 6 instruments are the: Vector FM, Vector Grain, Vector delay, Emit, Tree Tone & Bouncy notes.

You can check the demos of all the plugins on Ableton’s Live 11 page.

4. Performance Updates

Ableton Live 11 can now adjust its tempo based on incoming audio in real-time. Not only helpful for live performances but also when you are DJing, you can even turn Live into a tempo-synced FX box. This update also includes changes to the Racks. Racks now support up to 16 macros and come in with extra features like the randomization button, Real-time MIDI mapping, and more. See the update in action down below

5. Unpredictability

This new feature allows you to play with 3 different options: Note chance, Velocity Chance & Follow actions.

The note chance sets the probability that a note or drum hit will occur and let Live generate surprising variations to your patterns that change over time. Similarly, Velocity chance defines the range for velocity probability providing you the ability to create humanized variations and adding more dynamics to your sequences. The update to Follow Actions ensures that they can now be linked to the clip length, making it faster to create interesting sequences of clips.

6. New instruments & Curated collections

Ableton Live 11 includes 3 new instruments: Upright Piano, Brass Quartet & String Quartet. The piano does have a rich sound however the Brass and the strings still lack in providing the same quality as available in today’s market.

The 3 new curated collection packs include the Voice Box, Mood Reel & Drone Lab. The Voice Box is a collection of multiple contemporary vocal samples, Mood Reel is a collection of organic and synthetic sounds and the Drone Lab is a combination of tonal and textural samples, generative noise samples.

Release Date

Ableton Live 11 is scheduled to release in early 2021 however, the exact release date is yet to be announced. Also, Ableton is running a limited-time offer on Live 10 which provides a 20% discount and also gives a free upgrade to Live 11.

Catch all the updates in a single video down below: